positive review

Week three of the new year has given Australia an extreme heat wave. Now given I live in the middle of nowhere anyway and our standard January temperatures are in the 40’s (celcius), I’m coping but I’d be lying if I said it was pleasant (and I don’t even want to know what my power bill will look like because there has definitely been a need to run at least one air-con in the house more or less continuously during this period – if nothing else, my computer keeps overheating if I try and use it without cooling the room). Then of course I get told that other bloggers are all but snowed in.

Given the outside is hostile, it seems like a great week to indulge in anime – though who am I kidding, I don’t really need an excuse to do that. As always I’ve found some great posts during the week and I’ve linked below to some great posts from the community. There’s also links to my posts from the week below in case you missed them and hopefully we’ll find some more great content for week 4.

Posts from the Community

From PeregrinePrincess there is an incredibly beautiful analysis of a Natsume Yuujinchou episode in a post called Fleeting Light. It is the firefly episode and if you haven’t seen it there’s definitely spoilers here, but if you have seen the episode definitely go and check out this post. It beautifully captures the magic of Natsume and why these episodes speak to so many of us.

The Archive is on Fire has a post about Goblin Slayer and how the series looks at the title characters slow building of relationships and healing. If you are wanting a bit of a thoughtful and reflective take on an anime that has gotten a lot of criticism, this post might be a great read for you.

Crimson shares their thoughts on Soul Eater having finally finished the anime (Yay!). Here they discuss the characters, the pacing and that ending. There are a couple of spoilers here though for such an old anime it probably isn’t an issue and if you are looking for a fresh take on the series this is one to check out.

Aldael explains fairly wonderfully how the Boogiepop anime adaptation failed its first arc. They provide some excerpts from the light novel and compare to how the scene was depicted in the anime and suddenly the feeling that something was missing while watching the anime all makes sense. It really was just missing.

Irina brings us another thought provoking post about positive negative reviews. It examines different ways people approach writing negative reviews and how they come across to the reader. The comments section makes for some great reading, as is usual from one of Irina’s posts that get the community talking.

Marshmellow Pastel has a really intriguing post about Pastel Memories and asks the question of ‘who is this for?’ With a lead in discussion about the disconnect between subject matter and style for Ready Player One, this post is an intriguing read and one well worth the time so be sure to check it out.

Pick of the Week

Floating Into Bliss does it again with another thought provoking video/transcript discussing the Actual Problem with Subtitles. This one looks particularly at translations that add gendered terms to sentences where they did not exist and it comes with a myriad of anime examples and discusses why these might be a problem and why translations need to address this issue. Very thoughtful post and one worth watching/reading.

And a late entry and bonus pick of the week. Kapodaco did a bit of a follow up from my feature on Light Novels looking at his own viewing habits and ratings for anime and whether or not Light Novel adaptations scored lower. It’s an interesting post and takes the conversation in a different direction and is well worth reading.